Gorton's Recalls Fish After Consumer Finds Pills Inside

Gorton’s has issued a recall of some frozen fish fillets after they confirmed that a consumer found pills inside the product.
From the Philadelphia Inquirer:

Gorton’s said it ordered the recall as a precaution while a laboratory conducts tests to determine the nature of the pills. Those tests should be complete early next week.

“Obviously product alteration is a very serious matter,” said Jud Reis, vice president of marketing for the Gloucester, Mass., company. “We are conducting a full investigation into the source of the problem.”

The recall is for Gorton’s Six Crispy Battered Fish Fillets weighing 11.4 ounces. The UPC is 44400157770, with a date code of 7289G1 and a best-if-used-by date of April 2009. The fish also was sent to Alabama, California, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Tennessee and Texas. Consumers who purchased the fish may call Gorton’s at 800-896-9479.

The family that found the pills inside their fish did not become ill, but the FBI and FDA are now investigating the incident.

Southern Regional Police Chief James Childs said that, on Friday, he received a call from the FBI and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.

“They have become the lead investigators,” Childs said.

Childs forwarded them copies of his department’s report on how Tracy Rowan and her daughter found items they believed were pills inside two Gorton’s fish fillets they were eating on Feb. 24.

Rowan’s son, who was also eating a fillet, tasted something hard and bitter and spit it out, Rowan said.

Scary! If this had happened to us, we would not have behaved rationally. Someone would have had to clock us over the head with a frying pan and drag us off to be checked out by the hospital.